


Wakest With Thine Own Eyes

by thewightknight



Category: Dredd (2012), Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fae, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, fae techie, kylux adjacent, kylux au, mortal matt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-07
Updated: 2017-02-07
Packaged: 2018-09-22 15:06:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9613115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewightknight/pseuds/thewightknight
Summary: Matthias never imagined a life beyond what he had, laboring in the kitchens of a great lord's estate.  And then one evening, he discovered the lord's greatest secret.





	

**Author's Note:**

> My first Techienician! A little late for the anniversary. I wrote myself a prompt for this months ago and tonight the story came out to play. The title is taken from one of Puck's lines in A Midsummer Night's Dream.
> 
> Updated add: all the thanks to [Niibeth](http://niibeth.tumblr.com), [who drew fae techie](https://thewightknight.tumblr.com/post/156976219533/iron-eyes). You can click through to view, and I've also inserted it at the end of the fic.
> 
> See endnotes for warnings as per the tags.

Matthias worked in the kitchens of a great lord’s estate. Mostly he did the heavy lifting, as he was awkward and ungainly and his vision was poor, so the cooks did not trust him with anything sharp or fragile. But he could wrestle whole deer carcasses onto spits and lug around huge bags of potatoes and onions and whatever else needed unloading from the carts that arrived every day, as the great lord was rich and powerful and his hall was always filled with guests that needed feeding.

It was rumored that the lord had made a deal or a pact, because before his rule his lands were poor and his father and his father before him had struggled, their keep falling into disrepair, their retainers desperate and threadbare, and their neighbors encroaching on their lands. And then overnight things had changed. Gold poured from his coffers and even as his father withered and died and the lordship came to him, grain grew in the new lord's fields and his neighbors retreated as he gathered knights-errant uncounted to his banner. Rich tapestries covered fresh stone and the feasting began. The neighbors who had formerly shunned him now courted him, eager for trade, and also eager for a match between the lord and one of their daughters.

One by one the daughters were paired with his knights and his power grew. Some said he might be named king, uniting the disparate territories under one banner for the first time in generations.

Matthias did not care about any of this. All he cared about was that he had a dry, warm place to sleep, and food in his belly twice a day. The other servers shunned him, whispering about him behind his back, but he didn’t care. He had his friends. The castle cats kept him company. He fed them tidbits and they gave him their love, and sometimes they’d warn him when one of the visiting lords came prowling and he’d hide until they left to go sate their appetites elsewhere.

Life would have remained unchanged for him, the days becoming weeks, and the weeks months, and the months years, if it had not been for a series of small misfortunes. One of the cooks slipped and twisted her knee. One of the serving girls’ mother grew ill, and another had gotten pregnant by one of the lords, and went into labor within an hour of the other’s departure. One of the boys who served wine got kicked by horse, and another came down with an ague. So that evening, short staffed and short tempered, Cook grabbed him and slapped a tabard over him and sent him to the lord’s chamber.

“You keep your head down and your mouth shut, Matthias. Don’t you smart off to our master or it’ll be the stocks for you, may the good Lord help us all. I’d never send you up there at all, poor fool, if I had any other choice. You stay until the platter’s empty and then you come back for another, and you hold up the wall in the meantime. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Cook,” he mumbled. 

Wonder of wonders he made it up the stairs without stumbling, or dripping any of the juices from the platter onto the tabard. It was made for someone much smaller than him, and the ties pinched at his sides. The lord was not receiving in the main hall tonight, but in his private quarters. Ensconced in luxury, he and his guests lounged on padded divans, stuffing their faces and drinking to excess while they discussed matters beyond Matthias’ ken. Terrified of making a mistake, Matthias obeyed cook’s instructions to the letter, cowering in a corner when not put to serving. 

By the time he’d brought his third platter from the kitchen, the terror had begun to fade and he began to surreptitiously examine his surroundings. He had never seen such riches before. The walls were covered in tapestries embroidered in gold thread, and the furniture was richly carved and upholstered with velvet. Through a door he could see a bed longer than he was tall and wide enough that two of him could lie side by side with arms outstretched and not touch fingers.

So overwhelmed was he by the finery that it wasn’t until the fourth platter that he noticed the cage in the corner. Fine wrought iron it was, chased with gold, and a statue within so beautiful and lifelike he could hardly comprehend it. Whoever had sculpted it and painted it was a true master of the arts. Even with his blurred vision the detail left him breathless. It had painted hair the color of the horizon at sunset and robes of brilliant yellow, fire against the fine marble from which it had been sculpted. 

The form was curious, hunched over as it was, the bones of its back clear even to Matthias’ eyes. And then it moved. Just a twitch, a shake of the head, and it hunched further into itself. The arms flexed at their sides, unearthly long fingers forming into fists and then relaxing. 

He gasped, the noise lost in the lords’ boisterousness, but the creature in the cage heard him. It looked up and Matt recoiled. Where its eyes should be two black orbs peered out at him, tears like rust leaking down its cheeks.

Seeing his reaction, it shuddered and looked down again, radiating hopelessness and sadness. Matthias chanced a look at the lords, but they still ignored him, so beneath their notice. It must be a fae creature, he thought, like his mama had told him stories about so many years ago. A fairie trapped by the lord. That would explain his wealth and power. Mama had always said if you could trap one of the fae they had to do your bidding, and their magic was powerful and their reach was long. He’d dreamed of catching one for years, but now those dreams seemed sad and sordid, looking at this beautiful, pitiful being.

As if sensing his thoughts, it looked up at him again. 

“Can you help me?” he heard even though its lips didn’t move. “He took my eyes and replaced them with iron and until I can reclaim my own eyes he holds me and commands me. They are there, on the mantle, in the iron box.”

His eyes darted to where the creature pointed with one pale digit. There indeed was a box on the mantle, a match to the cage, wrought of iron and chased in gold. There was no lock that he could see, but only two latches, and yet iron burned the fae so there they would remain safe from its touch. 

He looked again upon the creature in horror. The lord had replaced its eyes with iron, he had said. The fae nodded, rust stains spreading further down his cheeks.

“I will try to help,” he vowed, not knowing how or when, but unable to bear the thought of this radiant being enduring such torment.

A kernel of an idea sprouted as he made his way back to the kitchens.

“My lord calls for strong drink,” he lied to the cook.

“He did? But they only drink watered wine on nights such as these, he and his inner circle.”

Matthias shrugged.

“Oh, very well, then.” She handed him both another platter and a pitcher and bade him be doubly cautious, because what was in the pitcher was more than his efforts were worth for a full year of labor. 

When he filled their goblets with the potent beverage, only one lord seemed to take note of the difference, with a raised eyebrow and a glance in Matthias’ direction. He kept his eyes downcast as he shuffled to the next, taking up his place against the wall when all had been served. Of all of them, he kept the great lord the most in his cups, and by the time the second pitcher was emptied all of them seemed the worse for it, but the great lord most of all.

“I’ll come back for you in the early hours,” Matthias whispered as he bore out the discarded dishes. 

He propped himself up against the wall when he retired, weary to the bone from the tension and afraid he would succumb to exhaustion if he put his head to pillow. When the fourth guards’ watch sounded, he rose. 

Never before had he been so careful where he put his feet, feeling his way forward with his toes to make sure he did not trip or bump. He stole through the servants’ halls like a ghost, freezing at every sound, heart in his ears. There was no place to hide on the stairs to the lord’s tower but he did not guard himself, secure in the wealth and power the friendship his captive fae’s magic had secured for him.

Easing the door open an inch at a time, Matthias waited for the lord to call out, but no such call came. The banked fire cast a glow over the room, and by its light he saw the fae’s cage was empty. Where had he gone?

“Here,” he heard, and he followed the voice, through the doorway. He nearly tripped when he entered the room, fabric tangling his feet. Yellow silk. Oh. 

The fae crouched at the end of the bed, naked, huddled in on itself, one leg outstretched and he could see the iron band that encircled it, and the chain that wrapped around one of the bedposts.

“My eyes,” it said.

Turning, he went to the mantle and took down the box. It opened to his touch and two brilliant blue orbs were revealed. Making his way back, he placed the box on the bed and reached for the fae. It flinched back from him, and he froze as the lord stirred at the movement.

“I’m not going to hurt you.”

“I know.”

It looked up at him and this close he could make out its features for the first time. High cheekbones and brows of fire and thin lips, drawn in pain, and those horrible rusted sockets. 

“You have to take them from me. They are my binding. I cannot touch them.”

Hands trembling, he reached out. The fae shuddered beneath him at the first brush of his fingers against its brow. He plucked the iron from the fairie’s face and then guided its fingers to the box, watching in wonder as its clever fingers snatched out the jewels within and seated them in its sockets. 

Fury blazed from its eyes, cold as the sky on a winter morning, and it turned, pouncing on the lord like a cat atop a mouse. The lord awoke with a start and it smothered his cry with one hand.

“The reckoning I promised you has arrived, good my lord,” it said, venom dripping from its lips with every word. The lord tried to struggle but the fae held him down, seemingly without effort despite its slight frame. As Matthias watched, the lord’s struggles weakened, and he grew pale and limp under the fae’s touch. When at last his last struggles ceased, the fae reached down and pulled a chain from his neck.

“The key is iron. You must release me from my bonds.”

Matthias took the key and fitted it into the lock on the band around the fae’s ankle. When it fell free, the fae drew his leg back, rubbing the blackened skin where it had lain. Under its touch the stain fell away and the skin grew whole again. 

“You have freed me from my captivity, mortal man. I would offer you a boon in exchange. What would you have from me?”

All of Matthias’ childhood desires flashed through his head. A mountain of sweets, a pony to love him, a warm home in which he and his mother could live, all the food he could ever want to eat. But all of it faded to naught in front of the terrible beauty before him.

“Take me with you,” he pled. “Take me with you to the fairie realm.”

It shook its head. “You know not what you ask, mortal. The roads I must take are treacherous, and filled with sights that drive men man.”

And for the first time in his life, Matthias was thankful for his imperfections.

“It is good, then, that my vision is so poor.”

The fae cocked its head, and then took his chin in its long fingers, turning his head this way and that. Its laugh rang out, a cacophony of bells that sent a shiver of joy up Matthias’ spine.

“So you are, and so it shall be. Your boon is granted. Come, then, take my hand so my glamour will guard us both.”

And so the fairie draped itself in its robes of saffron silk and they left the lord’s castle together, walking bold as brass out through the gates and into the dawn. The roads were dark and long and cold and even with his blurred sight the many horrors that shadowed their way almost overcame him, but after many day and a night they reached a point where the land met the stars and here the fairie paused.

“You must leave behind all things of this realm to cross over.”

Matthias stripped off his shirt and trousers and sandals and stood before the fae, bare as the day he was born. It stepped forward, taking both of Matthias’ hands in its own.

“Come then, mortal. Come with me to the land eternal and be mine forever.” It took one step back and then another, drawing Matthias with it, and a sparkling curtain parted before it as they left the earth behind and stepped into the land of dreams.

As the brightness enfolded them, the fae reached up and plucked two stars from the skies. It spun them into discs, clear as crystal, and wove a frame of gold around them. Reaching up, it settled them across Matthias’ face, folding them over his ears to keep them in place. For the first time in his life, he saw clearly, and what he saw first were two brilliant blue eyes, overflowing with mischief and love.

“Come, my mortal, my savior, my heart. I have a world to show you.”

**Author's Note:**

> There's implied noncon, just before the rescue, where Matt finds fae Techie chained to the lord's bed at night.


End file.
